


The Night Visit

by Cloverthirteen



Series: Franslim [1]
Category: A Bug's Life (1998)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Short One Shot, my first full fic, these two radiate gay energy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 20:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21142523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cloverthirteen/pseuds/Cloverthirteen
Summary: Slim goes to visit Francis in the anthill's hospital wing in the evening, not that long after Flik comes up with the idea to beat the grasshoppers.





	The Night Visit

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first fanfic that I've actually finished. I actually posted it on my tumblr back in like january or something, but now I actually have an ao3 account to post it on.  
A Bug's Life is criminally underrated, and I had my interest in it reawakened after I watched it a while ago. Anyways I'm convinced that Slim and Francis are boyfriends, so, here you go.

As I navigated through the twisting tunnels of the anthill, my mind was abuzz with doubtful thoughts.

_You're certain that visiting him is allowed?_

Yes, I already checked with the nurse twice, and the princess once. I'm still allowed to visit him until the sun sets.

_He's probably exhausted from the events of today, what if he's already asleep?_

Then I'll try to visit him again tomorrow. I just want to talk to him.

_Are you sure he would be okay with this?_

…

Come on, why wouldn't he be? You're good friends, after all! Stop worrying!

Well, “good friends” at this point might be a bit exaggerated. You are--or, at least, were--in P. T.'s circus together, and you did share several acts. So you were as close as that, at least. But I wasn't sure if he really thought of me as a close friend.

Of course, you were never apart for too long, mostly because of the hangups he had with other insects who had the misfortune to mistake him for a female. They only happened every once in a while, really, but often enough that it could distract him, or, if they pushed it, get him enraged, such as the other day. As everyone soon found out, I was the best at calming him down and getting him to focus on his act again. Perhaps that was why you were paired together in acts so often, I thought. And perhaps as a result of that, you became inseparable. But in a necessary way. I cared about him just as much as I cared about any other member of the troupe.

Well... until today, that is. After the events that unfolded today, I felt that there was something I needed to talk about with him

Ah, there's the room. I felt my insides flutter slightly as I approached. I took a deep breath, and gently pushed open the doors and peeked inside.

“Francis?”

“Yeah?”

He was lying on one of the flowers, a leaf pulled over him as a blanket. It looked like he was trying to get some rest, but he was clearly awake now.

“Oh,” I said, retracting slightly, “it-- it's just me-- I'm sorry if I was bothering you--”

“No, no, it's okay, Slim,” Francis said, a little softer, moving the leaf blanket off of him. He was probably relieved to see someone visit who won't call him “miss”. “You can come in.”

Again I pulled aside the leaf curtains and entered the room. Somewhat awkwardly, I sat down on the flower, right beside him.

“So, ah… this is some plan that Flik has for us, hm?” I tried, attempting to diffuse the atmosphere.

When Francis didn't answer, I kept talking. “Build a bird to scare away the grasshoppers… do you think that could really work? I mean, it certainly scared us before, but…”

He still wasn't saying anything. I decided to finally tell him what I was going to say.

“Um… really, I just… I wanted to say that, what you did back there was really, ah--”

“Brave and heroic, right?” Francis interrupted. “Yeah, yeah, it's what everyone's been saying.”

“But it was!” I said. “You didn't even know that little ant, and yet when you saw her fall, you went after her without a second thought!”

Francis scoffed. “Look, it's nothing special. She was just a kid! What would you have done?” He looked up at me, the previous softness in his voice gone. “Is this all you came in here for? To tell me something I've been being told all day?”

It surprised me that Francis could get tired of praise. A thought vaguely crossed my mind, wondering if he was expecting to hear something else from me. It almost sounded like he was.

“Look,” I tried again, “I was just trying to tell you that I'm proud of what you did, because not every bug would risk their life in the face of a bird! I wouldn't tell you this if I didn't care about you--”

Francis suddenly perked up in surprise. I could see the mild rage disappear from his face. He seemed to have forgotten about his injured leg.

“I… I wanted to talk to you about something,” I started to say. “When you and the young ant-- Dot--fell into the chasm, I hid at first, along with the others. But when I saw the...the bird…” I shook my head in fear of the memory. “When I saw it attempting to attack Dot and you, I started to panic, and…”

I paused, trying to put together exactly how it was I felt. “It was… as though I could not think of anyone else. I just couldn't stop worrying about you, as if my life depended on it. And when I found out that you were going to be fine, I felt…” I paused again to call back my feelings. “I felt an overwhelming sense of joy and relief, like nothing I had ever felt before.”

Francis had sat up as well as he could. He was looking at me with such a sense of wonder it was getting harder to look him in the eye. He still hadn't said anything. I hoped I wasn't coming off as strange to him.

“Are--are you all right? I wouldn't want to make you feel uncomfortable…” I said quickly.

“No…” Francis said finally, looking downward. “Um, look… I'm sorry for before. Back at the circus, I let those flies get the better of me. I kinda overreacted.”

I wasn't sure I heard him correctly. Francis never apologized for anything petty, and especially not to me.

Then a waiting look crept over his face. I knew what he expected me to do now.

“I'm sorry I called you a lady,” I said, grinning.

“And I'm sorry for calling you a twig,” Francis replied, giving my shoulder a shove and smirking, “ya twig.”

That was more like him. Things felt normal for once since I had showed up. We sat like that for a moment, and then Francis spoke up again.

“Hey, uh, Slim,” he said, his voice almost returning to its softer tone from before, “I get how you've been feeling. To be honest, I've been… feeling a lot of weird stuff too.”

“Have you?” I queried.

“For a while, actually. Always around you,” he said. “At first, I thought it was some kind of jealousy. But you don't really have anything to be jealous about.”

“I'm flattered,” I said dryly.

“Then I noticed that as much as you annoyed me, I still started to get, well... disappointed if we weren't doing an act together,” Francis continued, visibly wincing at his forced wording. “I thought I was being clingy or something.”

As he said it, he absentmindedly took hold of one of my hands in a gentle way. I suddenly found it extremely difficult to think straight.

“But I found out what was making me feel weird. And it… wasn’t either of those things.” Francis mumbled. “And then I started wondering if you felt the same sort of feelings, and the way you started acting around me… I felt like you did. But I started waiting for you to realize it. I guess I got a bit impatient.”

He sounded a lot more serious than usual. I wasn't sure what he meant. All I knew was that he had turned to face me, and was still holding my hand.

“I guess...I’ve just been waiting for you to tell me something like this. So I would know how you felt.”

I started to recognize Francis’ tone of voice, and my mind began to figure out what he meant.

“If you're trying to be romantic, it won't work,” I said through a slight mental panic.

“Oh, shut up,” he muttered, and I could catch a slight blush on his face as he took hold of my shoulders and pulled me down towards him.

There was no longer any space between our lips.

_ Oh_ was my only thought.

_ Oh._

I wrapped my upper arms around him, surprised by how good it felt. Francis responded by leaning into it, as far forward as he could. I felt pure bliss even overpowering the sort I had felt earlier, feeling that this was what I had been missing all day. It was perfection.

After what seemed simultaneously like a moment too soon and an eternity, we broke apart. We must have stared at each other with idiotically happy expressions on our faces for a good thirty seconds before Francis glanced down and noticed that I had apparently plucked him off his bed and was holding him in my lower arms, an action I didn't even recall taking.

Francis’ gleeful expression started to vanish, but he took one last glance up at me before leaping forward, wings fluttering, and hugging me tightly.

“You're such an idiot,” I heard him say as he leaned his head against my neck.

“I know, I know, I love you too,” I responded, hugging him back and swiftly kissing him on the head.

We held each other for a moment, basking in the warm atmosphere of our feelings we had created.

“Thank you,” Francis said quietly. He said it as if he thought it was too soft for me to hear.

But I heard.


End file.
